I 25
Principleofthe Common Cause/P.C.C./Fraassen: eventually leads to postulating unobservable entities. - The principle of the common cause cannot be a general principle of science.
I 28
CommonCause/C.C./Fraassen:to say that C is the common cause for the correlation between A and B is to say that relative to C there is no such correlation. C explains the correlation, because we only notice a correlation for as long as we do not consider C. - FraassenVsReichenbach: the principle of the common cause does not rule the science of the 20th century, because it requires deterministic theories.
I 114
Cause/Explanation/Theory:DefCause/Mackie: non-sufficient but necessary part of a non-necessary but sufficient condition. - FraassenVsMackie: Restriction: otherwise e.g. growth-plus-death-plus-decay may be the cause of death. - 1) Not every sufficient condition is a cause. - E.g. the existence of the knife is a necessary part. - 2) A cause must also not be necessary. - It may be that there are no previous sufficient conditions at all. - E.g. radium causes Geiger counter to click. - But atomic physics is compatible with that it does not click. - Cause/Solution/Lewis: Counterfactual Conditional: if A had not existed, B would not have exited. - Fraassen: but not literally. - Wrong: that a counterfactual conditional was the same as a necessary condition. - Solution/Fraassen: here, the "if/then" logic does not apply, because applies the law of attenuation there. - Everyday language: there is no attenuation here.

Fr IB. van FraassenThe Scientific Image Oxford 1980

Causes

Mackie

Bigelow I 268
Cause/Mackie/Bigelow/Pargetter:hecomes to similar results as Lewis, but with strict conditionals.
C: is a conjunction of conditions
c: cause
e: effect.
I 268
CounterfactualConditional/Lewis:
c would happen > e would happen
c would not happen > e would not happen
Mackie: strict conditionals:
N(C applies and c happens > e happens)
N(C applies and c does not happen > e does not happen).
Cause/INUS/Mackie: (Mackie 1965) Thesis: not sufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary but sufficient condition.
Cause/Lewis/Mackie/Bigelow/Pargetter: both assume a chain of necessary conditions. They differ in how the links of the chain are to be connected.
Lewis: through counterfactual conditionals
Mackie: through strict conditionals. Their antecedents can be so complex that we cannot specify them in practice.
Backup System/Bigelow/Pargetter: (see above) would cause a counterfactual conditional to fail. Nevertheless, Lewis will treat the cause as the cause because it contributes to the chain.
Mackie: ditto, because the deviating cause is part of a sufficient condition.

BigelowVsLewis/BigelowVsMackie: both theories have disadvantages.

Macki IJ. L. MackieEthics: Inventing Right and Wrong 1977

Big IJ. Bigelow, R. PargetterScience and Necessity Cambridge 1990

Causes

Bigelow

I 267
Cause/Bigelow/Pargetter:Thesis:a cause is neither sufficient nor necessary for an effect.
Reason: there is a backup system that could have produced the same effect.
---
I 268
Iftheupdated system failed. E.g. you could have also eaten another slice of bread. Different food intake can have exactly the same effect.
Blur/Imperfection/Bigelow/Pargetter: it is a characteristic feature of living systems. Nevertheless, this is not an intrinsic feature.
Cause/Lewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: Lewis allows that a cause is not a necessary condition for the effect. Nevertheless, he explains causation by necessity. Namely, through chains of necessary conditions. (1973b, 1986d, 1979).
Cause/Mackie/Bigelow/Pargetter: he arrives at similar results like Lewis, but with strict conditionals. (> Cause/Mackie)
Cause/INUS/Mackie: (Mackie 1965) Thesis: not a sufficient but necessary part of an unnecessary but sufficient condition.
Cause/Lewis/Mackie/Bigelow/Pargetter: both come from a chain of necessary conditions. They differ in how the links of the chain are to be connected.
Lewis: through counterfactual conditioning
Mackie: through strict conditionals. Their antecedents can be so complex that we cannot specify them in practice.
Backup system/Bigelow/Pargetter: (see above) would cause a counterfactual conditional to fail. Nevertheless, Lewis records the cause as a cause because it contributes to the chain.
Mackie: dito, because the deviant cause is part of a sufficient condition.
BigelowVsLewis/BigelowVsMackie: both theories have disadvantages.

Big IJ. Bigelow, R. PargetterScience and Necessity Cambridge 1990

Induction

Armstrong

III 50
Induction/Mackie:proinductive (probability) CoCo ArmstrongVsMackie - but: Armstrong pro induction: rational
III 52
Induction/Armstrong:fromthe observed to the unobserved: invalid, nevertheless necessary (!) rational - from conclusion to best explanation, if not BE, what should be better (analytic truth, that BE = BE?) - the unobserved will behave like the observed (alternatives are more poorly justified)
III 58
Induction/LogicalPossibility:that all emeralds are grue has the same logical possibility (percentage) as that they are green - the observed emeralds are green - but they are also grue - the mathematics is the same.
II (c) 104
Induction/ArmstrongVsMartin/VsPlace:asnominalists, they cannot assume a higher order atomic state that connects the U

Armstrong II (c)David M. ArmstrongReply to MartinInDispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996

Armstrong II (d)David M. ArmstrongSecond Reply to Martin London New York 1996

Armstrong IIID. ArmstrongWhat is a Law of Nature? Cambridge 1983

The author or concept searched is found in the following 9 controversies.

Disputed term/author/ism

Author Vs Author

Entry

Reference

Mackie, J. L.

Armstrong Vs Mackie, J. L.

Arm III 50
Induction/Counterfactualconditional/Co.co./Regularitytheory/Mackie: if it is very likely that all Fs are Gs, and we look at an a of which we believe or know that it is not an F or that it does not exist:
Assuming that a is an F, it is nevertheless inductively very likely that a is a G. Therefore we are entitled to the Counterfactual Conditional: if a were an F, it would be a G.
Armstrong: that is neutral in itself and can now be used to show that Humeean uniformities could also support counterfactual conditionals. And that is simply because of induction. Then the Counterfactual conditional is justified.
III 51
Vs:1)then it must be possible to solve the problem of induction, even if assuming that the laws of nature (LoN) are mere LoN.
But I believe that the reg. th. is committed to skepticism regarding induction (see above).
Vs: 2) a) If law statements support Counterfactual Conditional, then they would also have to inherit the uncertainty of induction! E.g. assuming all Fs are Gs, but there are doubts as to whether that is a law. Then the evidence is likely, but not certain. The corresponding Counterfactual Conditional: if a were an F, it would be highly probable that it would be a G.
The consequence of this Counterfactual Conditional would be a probability statement.
ArmstrongVsMackie: but we would not establish this Counterfactual Conditional Either it is a law that Fs are Gs or it is not. If it is not, the Counterfactual conditional is simply wrong.
b) it appears logically possible that a being could know the content of all laws, but this knowledge or belief are not acquired inductively. Couldn’t this being use GA just like us to support Counterfactual Conditional? That seems possible.
Nevertheless: how would it be possible if the assertion of Counterfactual Conditional was based on an inductive inference from antecedent to consequent? (As demanded by Mackie).

Armstrong II (c)David M. ArmstrongReply to MartinInDispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996

Armstrong II (d)David M. ArmstrongSecond Reply to Martin London New York 1996

Armstrong IIID. ArmstrongWhat is a Law of Nature? Cambridge 1983

Mackie, J. L.

Nagel Vs Mackie, J. L.

III 61
Ethics/Objectivity/Nagel:assumptionof objective values ​​and reasons can be challenged if a subjective opinion is more plausible.
Not even the assumption of a radical falsity of our ethics is contradictory.
Realism then helps, however, to consider certain alternatives more plausible than others.
Realism/Ethics/Nagel: I believe that, in principle, the possibility of realism cannot be proven by anything. We can only refute arguments for its impossibility.
III 62
ArgumentsVsRealism:
1)VsRealism/Ethics/Mackie:petitio principii: if values ​​are something real, they must be real objects of an ontologically fundamentally different kind.
Mackie: Thesis: values ​​are not a part of the fabric of the world. If they were, they would be "beings, qualities or relations of a very strange kind that would be quite different from all other things in the world". (Position).
NagelVsMackie: he is obviously in possession of a very particular image of the world (e.g. without the "non-natural qualities" of Moore).
But the assumption is not correct! The aspect of being bad in the impersonal sense is not a mysterious additional property of pain.
The recognition of values ​​does not mean that they are something occult, but that they are real values!
That means in consequence that our statements about reasons related to these values ​​can be true or false!
III 63
MackieVsNagel:hehad shown him in the wrong light: his doubts did not refer to strange entities, but to the reasons themselves.
And precisely those reasons are not needed to explain something that happens. Therefore, there is no reason to believe in their existence.
NagelVsMackie: this raises the problem at another level again: petitio principii: the assumption that utility is a criterion for existence.
NagelVsMackie: the thesis that there are special reasons, is a normative thesis and not a statement about the best explanation!
Best Explanation/BE/Nagel: if we presume that only that is real which needs to occur in the best explanation of the world, we assume that there are no irreducible normative truths.

NagelEr IErnest NagelTeleology Revisited and Other Essays in the Philosophy and History of Science New York 1982

Mackie, J. L.

Putnam Vs Mackie, J. L.

V 276
Ethics/Mackiethesis:the good is ontologically "strange": one cannot know that something is good, without having a "Pro" attitude with regard to this something. This boils down to that one presupposes the emotivism to prove it. It also presupposes that there is ONE TRUE THEORY.
PutnamVsMackie: but that does not mean that the linguistic use is not correct, there are also cases of conscious infringement.
Philippa Foot: you may even intend to be a bad person.
V 277
Thedifferencebetween prescriptive and descriptive use is not a bad feature of the vocabulary.
From the fact that "good" is used for recommendations, it does not follow that it is not a property.
V 278
Properties/Mackie:thesis:there is no property like "to be justified", but only "justification settings".
PutnamVsMackie: thus we fall into total relativism. For the "dedicated physicalists" there is even the problem that the reference (reference) is "ontologically strange". There are simply too many "candidates" (relations) for this post. Namely endlessly many.
Nature/Putnam: a priority would really be strange because we have built a certain neutrality, a certain blankness into our concept of nature. Nature should neither have interests nor intentions, nor a position.
Would a physicalist property be identical with moral correctness, that would be really weird. As if nature itself had intentions of reference.
V 279
Insofar,Moorewas right. But that does not schow that the good, the right, etc. do not exist. It only shows that the monistic naturalism (or "physicalism") represents an inadequate theory.
---
I (g) 201
Causality/Mackie:issomething epistemic and nothing at all in the world.
However, there can be "mechanical causality" next to it in the world. (> G. Vollmer: nowadays causality is traced back to energy transfer,).
I (g) 202
PutnamVsMackie:butthis is difficult to see without counterfactual sentences.
E.g. Putnam: then my practical frictionless operation of a switch does not represent a "mechanical cause".
PutnamVsMackie/PutnamVsVollmer: such a narrow term may be physically useful, but it is not useful for explaining reference.
On the other hand, when the circuit is mechanical causality, how do we characterizes it then without the counterfactual sentence: "The current would not have flown through the wire if the switch had not been moved"?

Stegmüller IV 435
God/Newman:nowthere is no earthly person who would fully live up to this role!
Belief/MackieVsNewman: arguments seldom create belief, even if they reinforce it.
NewmanVsMackie: in fact, it is rather the actual experience of conscience!
1. it commands legitimately (or authoritatively)
2. it points beyond the actor
3. the sanctions must come from a person, an intelligent being.
MackieVsNewman: 1. This does not lead to infinity attributes of God.
2. One can only agree to either the first or the other two premises.
Dilemma:
a) If conscience is taken as valid, it prescribes certain actions as reasonable. In the action itself this is a "should be done".
In this case one does not need to look beyond the action for a higher being.
IV 436
Thefactthat regrets, feelings of guilt, etc. occur here is natural: because conscience itself tells us that we should feel this way. In addition, the feelings of guilt appear against a (human) person whom we have treated badly, and not against God.
b) If we do not simply accept conscience in this way, but try to interpret it critically, then we actually encounter people, but human and not divine ones. Parents, teachers, institutions, etc.
IV 437
Thereiseither ethical objectivism and intuitionism or a naturalistic psychological interpretation of conscience as better hypotheses.
MackieVs moral proofs of God: better explanations for action than for the existence of a divine person.
Practical decisions must be based on factual beliefs and not vice versa!
We cannot use what we are inclined to regard as reasonable action as evidence of what is the case.
IV 438
MackieVsKant:difficultyof his moral argument: if a certain practical principle presupposes quite certain factual assertions, then reason, as pure as it may be, cannot claim to have shown the validity of this practical principle if it has not independently proved the validity of the factual assertions in question.

I 465
God/Creation/JohnLeslieMackie: sharp criticism of the conventional doctrine of God:
Thesis: to explain the fine tuning of all necessary preconditions for the existence of life by a neo-Platonic assumption of ethical being-demanded instead of the usual many-worlds hypothesis.
Theology/KanitscheiderVsMackie: did not distinguish between two concepts of creation:
1. creatio originans
2.creatiocontinuans, support of the legal structure, permanence.
I 467
LawsofNature/Kanitscheider: there is no point in imagining how to pull the laws out of the corset of the world like fish bone sticks, and then watch them collapse.
((s) According to which laws would the collapse take place?)
The conceptual separation between the world and its laws leads to emptiness.

Kanitsch IB. KanitscheiderKosmologie Stuttgart 1991

Kanitsch IIB. KanitscheiderIm Innern der Natur Darmstadt 1996

Rawls, J.

Mackie Vs Rawls, J.

Stegmüller IV 206
Altruism/Rawls:("justice as fairness"): Rawls feins that creatures are not guided by sympathy, but only by self-love, "rational egoist".
IV 207
Rawls/Stegmüller:the"veil of ignorance" goes back to J. Harsanyi.
VsUtilitarianism: initially, subjective preferences are unknown.
MackieVsRawls: nevertheless, the result is something similar to utilitarianism: each rational egoist presumes, probably rightly so, that he is more likely to belong to the broader group of luckies than to the smaller group of unfortunates and accordingly schemes disadvantages for "the others."
Instead: search for a compromise that is acceptable to everyone involved.
Society/MackieVsRawls: but now this compromise is identical to U3, the third stage of universalization.
IV 208
RawlsVsMackie/Stegmüller:Rawlswould not accept that, since his model is not an immediate guide to action.
Def morality in the narrower sense/Mackie/Stegmüller: restriction of the self-interests of the agents.

Arm III 36
Regularitytheory/Armstrong:If we vary the accompanying circumstances now, then the limit value of the relative frequency in each class of circumstances is maintained.
(Truth conditions/tr.cond./law statements/Resilience: But the resilience throws no light on the truth conditions for law statements, as the text might suggest).
Description dependence/Resilience/ArmstrongVsSkyrms/ArmstrongVsMackie: this introduces a considerable element of arbitrariness or convention. The law statement ascribes a precise probability to Fs for being Gs.
It conceals that it depends on the decision how the facts are described. Mackie and Skyrms are honest enough not to conceal that:
Coincidence/physical coincidence/Skyrms: is not absolute! (Facts are description dependent).
Standards for resilience evolve along with physical theories.
Resilience/Armstrong: the term is useful when we want to develop objective tests.
Laws of Nature/LoN//ArmstrongVsSkyrms: one should never ask more of laws than this: they should be potentially resilient. Fs have the probability of being a G always under all nomically possible circumstances.
III 37
Butthefact that these circumstances exist is contingent! We expect that some never occur.
Skyrms: Follows the reg. th.
Arm III 65
Resiliency/Lawsofnature/Regularity/Armstrong: E.g. it is assumed to be a Humean Regularity that Fs are Gs. Which additional condition would turn this into a law? We want the Fs to resilientyl be Gs, i.e. under every nomically possible circumstance. Of course, this cannot absolutely be fulfilled. But relative resilience:
E.g. there may be Fs that are Hs that are Js that are Ks ... where the class of factors {H, K, J ...} covers a wide range of appropriate circumstances. Then and only then the reg. is a law.
How broad must the range be to ensure that the factors are suitable? Intuitively, so that if there are many factors, it is nomically possible in the test to produce an F which is a ~G.
E.g. Smith’s Garden (see above). The generalization is highly resilient here, because there is a broad range of circumstances that could falsify it if it is falsifiable.
VsResiliency/VsSkyrms: why should there not be laws that are non-resilient?.
Law: if it is a law that the Fs are Gs, then s is potentially resilient by definition. It is physically not possible for an F, which is a K, not to be a G. But why should nature be so accommodating as to provide us with reasons to assume that there is no such K? Why should there be Fs which are accompanied by factors that are plausible candidates for Ks, but happen to be not?.
E.g. why should Smith’s Garden not exist somewhere, but without fruits, and yet be it a law that it contains nothing but apples? Only a vulgar positivism could prohibit that.
ArmstrongVsResilience/ArmstrongVsSkyrms: that is the reason why the refinement of reg.th. must be rejected by resilience. This requires an urgent systematic solution.
How can the resilience theorists specify the real factors for a test?.
III 66
Onlybyfiltering out the nomically significant factors. He needs a coherent system. Therefore, problems of the systematic approach are also problems of the resilience approach.

Armstrong IIID. ArmstrongWhat is a Law of Nature? Cambridge 1983

Swinburne, R.

Mackie Vs Swinburne, R.

Stegmüller IV 405
Proofforthe existence of God/confirmation/MackieVsSwinburne:
1. How can we assert an output probability indicating that there is a God, if no such universe existed?
The data have to be taken from background knowledge.
IV 406
Thenthebackground knowledge only contains logical and mathematical truths. How should they make the God hypothesis more likely?
Swinburne: seemingly only compares two competing hypotheses:
a) That there is no specific cause and no further explanation for the complex universe
b) That there is a God.
Both hypothesis assume that there is the universe.
Background knowledge/Swinburne: our background knowledge includes all the knowledge about the world, but not religious assumptions. Then it is more likely that God exists than not.
proof of the existence of God/confirmation/MackieVsSwinburne:
2. The fact that the uncaused universe cannot be explained further, does not justify Swinburne's notion that it is "strange and surprising" or "very unlikely".
A hypothesis involving a divine creation is, on the other hand, quite unlikely!
If there were a God in the sense of traditional theism, it would certainly be very likely; but this is about the existence and not to the actions of an existing God.
IV 407
proofofthe existence of God/Swinburne/Stegmüller: leans on considerations of simplicity: to accept omnipotence, infinite knowledge and infinite goodness means as much as "to assume the simplest kind of person"!
MackieVs: contradictions between theists. greatness (Anselm) Vs simplicity.
MackieVsSwinburne: 1. The simplicity is achieved through the adoption of a series of actual infinities.
2. The peculiarity is not eliminated, but merely covered: why had God the preference, to create exactly this world?
3. A disembodied spirit is very unlikely. (And especially Swinburne workes with his scientific background and probabilities).
IV 408
4.Ifone wants to explain the order of the natural world by a divine plan, one has to explain the order in the divine plan!
MackieVsSwinburne: doesn't call for complete explicability and universal intelligibility of the world (as did Leibniz). But he still demands explicability. He attempts to reduce the inexplicable part. Hew ants to do so without relying on a "sufficient reason" or "essential existence".
Unfortunately, it turns out that then he has nothing to justify that by adding God we explain something more.
IV 425/426
Explanation/MackieVsSwinburne:weas philosophers do not have the right to, first, mentally isolate and/or idealise that simple relation that interests us and is known to us from a truly very complicated procedure, and second to use this as a familiar model. (Argument).
SwinburneVsMackie: might reply that it could belong to God's abilities to elicit the appropriate intentions in us. Stegmüller: but that is highly mysterious.
Explanation/Theism/MackieVsSwinburne: the personal explanation is not even a competitor but a special case of causal explanation!
1. It is just as fantastic and unlikely as the evolutionary explanation.
2. If each body soul relationship were to be explained, that would be a relapse into occasionalism
3. Locke: if divine omnipotence gave humans the ability to think, then why not also the stones? (> Thinking stones).

The author or concept searched is found in the following 4 theses of the more related field of specialization.

Disputed term/author/ism

Author

Entry

Reference

Ethics

Mackie, J.L.

Put V 276
Ethics/Mackiethesis:The good is ontologically "strange": you cannot know that something is good without having a "pro attitude" towards that something. This amounts to assuming emotivism in order to prove it. It also presupposes that there is A TRUE THEORY.
PutnamVsMackie: but that does not mean that the linguistic use is incorrect, there are also cases of deliberate contravention.
Philippa Foot: You can even aim to be a bad person.
V 277
Thedifferencebetween prescriptive and descriptive use is not a bad function of vocabulary!
The fact that "good" is used to recommend does not mean that it is not a property!
Stegm IV 266
Moral/Ethics/Mackie:Thesis:Primacy of rights over duties and goals.
IV 286
Moral/Ethics/Mackie:Problem:Exceptions for animals, sick, disabled, old.
IV 287
Thesis:Herewe have to develop a humane attitude that makes us wish that people and animals are well. (Disposition).
IV 287
Moral/Ethics/Mackie:neitherteleological nor deontological: rather methodological! Without reference to mythical entities such as "objective values", obligations and "transcendental necessities".
IV 288
Self-loveisa positive value for Mackie.
IV 288/289
Hehopesthat "utilitarianism", "law" and "egoism" will result in one and the same thing. ">Convergence optimism.

Nagel III 62
Mackie:Thesis:values are not part of the fabric of the world. If they were, they would be "entities, qualities, or relationships of a very strange kind that would be quite different from all other things in the world. (Position).
III 63
NagelVsMackie:thethesis that there are special reasons is a normative thesis and not a statement about the best explanation!
Bridge IV 169
Ethics/Mackie:thesis:there are no objective values.
IV 170Stegmüller:this is ontological, not linguistically analytical.